Wednesday Practice Report

We had a bit of news come out of Starkville today. Coach Dan Mullen said he plans on using more than one quarterback for the Sept. 5 opener against Jackson State. “We’ll play at least two in the first game. If we need to play more, we’ll play more,” he said. OK, not really news, and you figure – and hope – there will be garbage time aplenty against JSU. So we ought to at least see Tyson Lee, Chris Relf and Tyler Russell.

As for other positions, Mullen said competition for starting jobs is still wide open. “Everybody says ‘ones’; there are no ones to me. Our three-deep who will play in a game, we should know that by Sunday-ish. Nah, probably Wednesday of next week I would guess. Maybe.”

In the secondary, for instance, Mullen said, “I haven’t looked down and said, ‘OK, this is how we’re going to be.’ We’re still looking at guys who can play, you know? We’re not going to play one guy an entire game at any position; we’re going to be rotating guys.”

In other words, David Murray is going to have a heck of a time keeping his participation chart updated. By the way, I owe Murray (of Dawgs’ Bite) much thanks for sending me the transcript of Mullen’s media session this evening. I was unable to make it to Starkville.

“The first game we might try to play more guys than we might down the road and see,” Mullen said. “I mean, it’s a lot different when you go in the stadium in front of 55,000 than when you’re practicing in front of me. So we’ll see how they respond to that.”

On the injury front, starting center J.C. Brignone was out with a sprained ankle. He should return to practice Monday.

By the way, no media availability tomorrow, so we’ll be checking back in on the Bulldogs on Friday. Plenty of MSU stories coming in the Daily Journal this week, though, so stay tuned.